


in for a penny, in for a pound

by Quentanilien



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 2x05 missing scenes, Canon Compliant, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 18:13:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3420641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quentanilien/pseuds/Quentanilien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the first time he's ever heard her ask anyone for help—even in this roundabout, uniquely Raven way—and that's probably why he doesn't hesitate for a second. That, among other things, but he'd rather not examine too closely why he's so willing to put his ass on the line for Raven Reyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in for a penny, in for a pound

**Author's Note:**

> All the missing Raven/Wick scenes that would've been in 2x05 if I could have my way. I wrote this to be canon compliant, if you subscribe to my interpretation that Wick is more or less in love with Raven. The only thing I waver on is the degree to which he's aware of it, which is all up to interpretation. (I mean, just take one look at the way the man looks at her!)

When news reaches the engineering room that the daughter of the latest chancellor has stumbled into Camp Jaha—bruised and bloodied but very much alive—Raven drops her screwdriver and the radio she's working on with a clatter that startles Wick out of his concentration.

She fixes Sinclair with a stare of disbelief. "Clarke?" she demands. "Clarke Griffin?" As if there’s any other missing chancellor's daughter.

Sinclair nods in confirmation. "She's alone," he says carefully, eyeing Raven with sympathy. The entire camp knows the reason behind Abby Griffin's shocklashing punishment, how she'd disobeyed Kane and sent Collins and a couple other delinquents off into the woods to find her daughter. That she'd arrived at camp alone meant one of two things: she was the only one who made it back, or the teenage search and rescue squad is still out there looking for her. Neither of which bodes well for Collins.

Wick watches Raven out of the corner of his eye, waiting for her face to fall. But it doesn't. Instead, a relieved smile hovers at the corner of her mouth, tiny and hesitant but just as genuine as the one when they'd managed to raise the beacon earlier that day, and damn if the sight of her smile doesn't make his heart clench in strange ways that he'd like to ignore.

She pushes herself to her feet and grabs for her cane, still a bit wobbly and unused to the brace. She's halfway to the door before she remembers herself and stops to glance back at Sinclair. "Uh, permission to take a break, sir?"

Sinclair's tone is gentle when he answers. "Permission granted, Reyes, but Chancellor Griffin's got her under lockdown treating her injuries and making her rest. I doubt she'll be up and about ’til morning."

"I'd like to be there just in case, sir," she says without hesitation.

Sinclair gives a short nod. "Go on, then."

She's heading for the door again almost before the words are out of his mouth, but she pauses momentarily and looks over her shoulder when he continues speaking. "Reyes. You did a good job on the beacon today."

Raven twists her lips up into a wry smile. "Lot of good it did. And I didn't do it alone," she adds, eyes darting to Wick for the first time since Sinclair entered the room.

He feels his eyebrows shoot up, because Raven Reyes doesn't hand out compliments easily, even off-handed ones.

"It did," Sinclair says firmly. "Clarke Griffin says your beacon's what brought her to Camp Jaha. She wouldn't have found us otherwise."

Raven's eyes meet Wick's again. Their beacon didn't accomplish its intended purpose, but judging by the expression on her face he's going to put it down as a win in his book. They can figure out a different way to find the other Ark stations.

"Like I said, you did good work today, Reyes. I don't want to see you back here before morning," Sinclair says sternly, and it's just like his usual effortless way of managing people. He runs a tight ship, but usually succeeds in acting like an indulgent father to all his minions at the same time. Wick partially attributes it to his years working for Jake Griffin, who ran Engineering in much the same way.

Raven smiles gratefully and all but runs out the door, leaning heavily on her cane.

Wick watches her go. She hasn't spoken much about her time on the ground, only work-essential information in passing—things like  _don't even bother trying that frequency, it's been jammed for three weeks_ and  _don't eat those nuts, you'll be tripping for 24 hours_. But he can tell from the way her eyes go all soft and sad every time anyone mentions the missing delinquents how deeply she cares about them. And Wick's not an idiot—he doesn't need it spelled out for him to see that her romantic relationship with Collins is over, and that it probably has something to do with how quickly the kid high-tailed it out of camp to find Clarke Griffin. He can hear it in the brave way she says Finn's name—the few times she's mentioned him—when she insists his mission will be successful. The little shit hurt her, that much is obvious, and Wick can't quite help it if his fingers curl into fists every time anyone speaks his name.

And there's the mystery, because that pained expression didn't cross her eyes for a second when she heard Clarke Griffin's name. There's a story there between the three of them, and Wick would bet a week's moonshine ration that it's not the stereotypical one most people would assume it was.

He's startled out of his thoughts by the sound of Sinclair clearing his throat, way too loudly to be genuine. "All right over there, Mr. Wick?" he asks dryly. "Or do I need to call Reyes back to do your work for you?"

Wick shifts on his feet, running a hand self-consciously through his hair. "No, sir. Just running specs in my head."

Sinclair eyes him askance, voice dripping with sarcasm when he says, "I'm sure."

Sinclair's been eyeing him suspiciously for the better part of a year. Wick's used to it by this point. And he doesn't mind so much, as long as Raven's not around to see it. He's not ashamed of...whatever it is Sinclair suspects him of.

He works late that night and crashes under his workbench with a blanket and a pillow. Beds are at a premium these days, and he sleeps deeply enough that the floor doesn't feel much worse than a bunk.

Raven doesn't make a reappearance until the following afternoon. Wick's alone, trying to bring a cracked solar panel back from the dead, but he looks up at the sound of her uneven footsteps. She's got dark circles under her eyes and two little worry lines between her eyebrows and before he has time to push the thought away he wonders how she looks so damn pretty even when she's clearly exhausted.

She collapses on a rickety stool across from him, props her elbows on the workbench and pokes at a loose wire protruding from the panel. "Isn't this a little beneath you?" she asks, but she can't even muster up a teasing tone so the words come out flat.

"No one else to do it," he replies lightly. "Up to me to be a jack of all trades." He glances up at her, and nothing. There's something weighing on her mind, that much is obvious, but he might have to ease her into talking about it.

"Raven," he says, to pull her attention away from the wire. "I totally set you up for that one."

She says nothing, just raises an eyebrow.

"Master of none?" he prompts, voice laced with honest disbelief.

Her mouth twitches the tiniest bit. Success.

He sets his pliers down and leans on his elbows, mirroring her posture and meeting her eyes. "Hey," he says, as softly as he dares. "What's up?"

"Clarke's fine," she begins, using that guarded tone she has when she's putting up a mighty effort to mask her emotions. "I saw her this morning."

Wick wants to ask if she slept at all, but he bites his tongue. Raven is prickly when anyone dares to fuss over her.

"Everything's changed now. We were wrong; the grounders don't have them. They're in Mount Weather; there are people living there, have been for the last hundred years. Holdovers from the U.S. government, Clarke says. They have this huge underground fortress, technology, lots of food. They grabbed the survivors from the dropship, 48 of them including Clarke."

Raven's voice catches a little over the low number, and Wick tries not to flinch. Less than half of them survived then, these kids he essentially owes his life to, him and every other person at Camp Jaha.

"Clarke wanted to leave and they wouldn't let her. They told the kids no one survived the Ark landing. Anyway, long story short, she escaped by herself to get help." She swallows hard. "And half the search party Abby sent out looking for her came back this morning."

Wick finishes the thought so she doesn't have to. "Finn's not with them." It's not a question.

She presses her lips together and shakes her head. "He's still out there looking for her.”

If Collins’ apparent obsession with the Griffin girl bothers her, she shows no sign of it. “Somebody’s gotta go after him,” Wick says with resignation, wondering if she came to ask him if he’d be on the search team. It doesn’t make sense—he has zero experience shooting a gun and hardly any more than that trekking around in the woods—but there’s something cagey in her expression that makes him think she came here to ask a favor. Raven doesn’t ask for favors. It’s going to take her forever to spit it out if he doesn’t nudge her along.

Before he has a chance to do that very thing, she shakes her head again. “Abby won’t allow it. Says the guards are spread too thin, and she won’t let Clarke go either.”

Now everything snaps into place. Wick pushes off his elbows, rubbing the back of his neck and chuckling a little. “Okay, Reyes, spit it out. What do you need me to do?”

She sits up straighter, eyeing him up and down warily. “I didn’t ask for help.”

Wick raises an eyebrow. “It was implied.”

Raven opens her mouth to reply and then snaps it shut again, chewing on her lip for a second in a very uncharacteristic show of hesitation. She studies his face for a few long seconds, looking for something there, and he waits patiently for her to find it.

Her expression shifts when she does, back to her usual steely determination, and she leans forward on the workbench again and lowers her voice. “Clarke’s taking the Blakes with her. I said I’d get them guns and switch the fence off long enough for them to get out.”

Wick gives a low whistle. “That’s a pretty modest promise. Next time maybe set the bar a little higher.”

She bristles at his tone. “Look, I’m not asking for your help. I trust you not to tell anyone, and all I need you to do is make yourself scarce when I shut down the fence’s power supply for a few seconds.”

Wick scoffs at that. “Come on, Reyes, that’s not a one-man job. Even you can’t be in two places at once.”   

That earns him a dark scowl. “I’ll make it work.” She leverages herself off the stool and heads for the door. “I’ll be back in half an hour,” she throws over her shoulder. “Make sure you’re not here.”

“Raven,” he says, even though he knows that won’t stop her. It’s deja-vu—the radio beacon argument all over again. He sidesteps the workbench and catches up to her in a few long strides. “Raven, hold up.” He snags her arm, but she’s already stopped and turned to him, so he lets go.

She's looking up at him expectantly, but when he's this close to her the height difference always flabbergasts him. She's so strong, so fierce, so larger-than-life that he always forgets it until he's standing right next to her. Who's he kidding, he nearly forgets it even then, because physical proximity to Raven does something funny to his body, like she's a planet and he's a satellite pulled inexorably into her orbit. No going back from there, but he stopped trying a long time ago.

"I'm in," he says simply, lips twitching at the irony. If only she knew how deep.

She blinks once, giving him that  _you're an idiot_ look. "What?"

"Your plan already involves me turning a blind eye. If I'm gonna break the law, I'd rather do it actively." He spreads his arms wide. "In for a penny, in for a pound."

She glances over her shoulder as if someone's listening in, then steps even closer to him. "Punishment for a felony is shocklashing."

She looks so concerned it's almost humorous. She'll put herself in danger without hesitation, but anyone else tries to do it and she balks. He smirks. "Still better than floating."

She huffs out a laugh, shaking her head and eyeing him like she's questioning his sanity.

"Come on, Reyes, you gonna stand here trying to talk me out of it, or are we gonna do this thing?"

She holds her hands up in surrender, like she's the one doing him a favor. "Fine. If I radio you within the hour, can you shut the fence down long enough for them to slip out?"

"You got it," he says, turning to grab a pair of walkies off his workbench and tossing one at her.

She tucks it in her leg brace, eyeing him for a second like she thinks he's going to change his mind. "Great. Well I'd love to chat, but I've got an armory to raid."

She flashes that arrogant grin he's been sorely missing, and it's so distracting it takes him an extra second to process her words. "Wait, what?" he blurts out, following her towards the door again. "Tell me you've got a better plan than that."

Raven laughs, gives her ponytail a casual flip. "Please, Wick. Like I'm dumb enough to walk in there myself. I know a guy." She shrugs a shoulder. "The less you know, the better."

His worry must show on his face, because she slugs him in the arm. "Relax. I can trust him. He's my friend, Finn's friend. You just worry about your job."

Wick backs away, hands in the air, waving his walkie ostentatiously. "Glued to my ear, Reyes."

Once she’s gone, he goes back to work on his busted solar panel, mostly to distract himself, fingers tapping a nervous rhythm against the table while he tries not to think of Raven risking her ass and thanks his lucky stars Sinclair's busy with the council so he doesn't need to add lying to his mentor to the day's schedule.

Wick figures the gun heist goes off without a hitch, because less than thirty minutes later the walkie crackles to life next to his hand, and her voice comes across it, low and confident. "Shut 'er down, Wick."

It's so easy it's almost laughable, just a matter of making sure no one sees him at the circuit board, one flip of a switch and it's down. Forty-seven seconds later, her voice cuts across the silence again.

_"_ They're clear."

"Roger that," Wick says, then flips the switch back on, and no one's the wiser, for now. Most the guards wouldn't know a live wire from a dead one unless it zapped them across the face.

He manages to frankenstein together a working solar panel using spare parts and some elbow grease (which he  _does_  know something about, thank you very much) and he exits Engineering before Raven returns, determined to get it reinstalled in its proper place half a dozen meters up the side of Alpha station before dinner.

Hours later, he's seated in the mess hall with a couple of buddies, poking glumly at his protein ration, wondering what the hell they're doing on the ground if they can't even eat some real meat finally. He tunes out the inane chatter around him as a few more people join them at the table, complaining about being assigned latrine digging duty for the day as if it's the worst thing that could possibly happen to them. The sound of Raven's name snaps him back to attention.

"What?" he says sharply.

"I asked," one of the guys—Wick thinks his name is Tait—repeats patiently, "if you heard about Reyes."

"What about her?" Wick asks warily.

"She helped the princess and those Blake kids leave camp. Chancellor confronted her about it at the bar, right in front of everyone."

Wick lurches to his feet before he even realizes what he's doing. "Is she in lockup?"

"No, the chancellor slapped her and took off. Reyes got off easy—guess they're not handing out punishments for felonies anymore."

Wick feels his face darken. "Say that again and I'll make sure you're on latrine duty for a month." He leans forward and yanks Tait's tray off the table before he has a chance to touch it, heading straight for the door with it.

"Hey, that's my dinner, asshole!" Tait shouts, but Wick ignores him.

Raven's still sitting at a table near the bar, hands clasped around a cup of moonshine and staring off into the middle distance. Everyone's going about their business around her, but Wick can see the way they're skirting her like she has a contagious disease.

He plops the dinner tray in front of her and takes a seat across the table. "It's no three-headed fish, but it sure tastes like home." He leans back in his chair, tips it backwards onto two legs. "Really takes you back. Stale air, piss water. The glory days."

Raven says nothing, just tightens her fingers around her cup. Wick studies the familiar lines of her face, the red mark on her cheek even the darkness can't quite hide, the way she's sort of shrunk into herself. She doesn't even tell him to leave her alone, and that's how he knows she's really hurting.

"So we're felons now?" he asks conversationally.

Raven's mouth tightens. "No, just me."

"Come on, Reyes. I'm a grown man. Don't cover for me."

She glances up at him. "I knew she'd figure it out. Just didn't know how she'd react."

He drops his chair back to the ground and holds her gaze, all trace of humor gone from his voice. "It was a shitty thing to do."

Raven smiles faintly. "She thinks  _I_  did a shitty thing."

Wick has no answer for that, because the situation is just shitty all around.

They sit in silence for a few minutes. Raven takes a drink from her cup, sets it down, taps her fingers against it, rubs her cheek distractedly. When she speaks again, her voice is hoarse, a false note of dismissiveness in it. "Could've been worse, right? Better than a shocklashing."

Wick tips his head in acknowledgment and lets the subject drop. Maybe she'll discuss it with someone else. Or bury it deep inside where she can tell herself it hurts less. Whatever the case, she'll handle it in her own way.

She sits forward in her chair suddenly, elbows propped on the table. "Hey, I'm sorry, Wick."

He stares at her in confusion. "For what?"

She raises an eyebrow. "Sinclair's going to hear about it. He'll know I had help."

Wick fidgets uncomfortably in his chair. He's already steeled himself for this. It's not like he's never broken the law before—little things here and there that he never got caught for. But the fence is all Sinclair—his boss, his friend, his mentor, the first person who gave him a real chance—and this feels like a betrayal of all that. He doesn't regret doing it, but still. It stings. "Hey, it's not like he can fire me. My skills are at a premium right now."

For once, she doesn't have anything scathing to say about that, and they regard each other silently across the table, understanding passing between them.

Wick heaves a dramatic sigh. "The ground sucks, Reyes."

She snorts softly. "Tell me about it."

"Sucks less than the Ark though."

Raven throws her hands up. "Whoa there, Pollyanna. I can't handle your optimism right now."

Wick rolls his eyes and sits back in his chair.

"Wick," she says suddenly, staring into her cup instead of at him. "Why'd you do it?"

"Gonna need a little clarification. I do a lot of things." He slaps a shit-eating grin onto his face.

She gives him a withering look. "Why'd you help us?"

He raises his eyebrows and holds out a hand for her cup. She rolls her eyes and passes it over without comment. He tips it back, bracing himself for the burn of moonshine and spluttering a little when there's nothing but the cool wash of water over his tongue. "What's this?" he asks indignantly, holding the cup out.

"It's called dihydrogen monoxide," she says dryly. "You should try it sometime."

"Not my fault that the only palatable liquid on the Ark was moonshine," he grouses, downing the rest of the water. He doesn't think he'll ever stop appreciating how fresh and clean water is on the ground, how he can drink as much of it as he wants.

"You didn't answer my question," she prompts, watching him curiously.

Wick sets the empty cup down and slouches back in the chair. "Tell you what, Reyes. I'll answer if you eat that." He jerks his chin towards the protein ration sitting untouched on the tray in front of her. She hardly slept the night before, and he's guessing she hasn't eaten all day. She's got no one making sure she takes care of herself—not that she'd even listen to them—and she's running herself ragged. He's gotta pick his battles, but he thinks he's won this one.

Her lips twitch. "Fine."

His voice turns serious when he answers, at odds with his casual posture. "The way I see it, none of us would be alive and on the ground if it weren't for those kids. You all saved our lives. It'd be a pretty crappy way to repay that by cutting even a single one of them loose in the woods."

Raven's pinned him with the full intensity of her gaze, and he tries not to fidget in his seat, because it's the damn truth, but it's not the entire truth. "And," he adds softly, "you're my friend, and friends help each other out when they need it. Even when the friend is probably the most stubborn person on the planet, and refuses to actually ask for help in the customary human manner, using words like _please_ and—”

 "Shut up, Wick," she says, fighting an actual smile and half-losing the battle.

And that's all it takes—that quick flash of teeth and the little crinkles at the corners of her red-rimmed eyes—and his heart does that strange squeezing thing again. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

"Damn it," he mutters under his breath.

"What?" she asks, tiny smile still hovering at the corner of her mouth.

Wick grins, shakes his head. "Nothing, Reyes. Eat your dinner before I do." 

 

**Author's Note:**

> One little personal note: I have a headcanon that Raven doesn't drink alcohol because of her mom, hence the water in her cup.
> 
> I am BEYOND EXCITED for the next two episodes! My little crackship that could, working together, sassing each other, making all my dreams come true.


End file.
